Lose the commute, keep the community

TRACY - The coffee is ready by 9 a.m. The office is toasty warm. A friendly face greets you at the door. And a coffee mug marks your desk.

Tara Cuslidge

TRACY - The coffee is ready by 9 a.m. The office is toasty warm. A friendly face greets you at the door. And a coffee mug marks your desk.

A typical day at work? Not quite. Welcome to Tracy Virtual Office, a co-working community where a variety of business professionals come to work, find inspiration and set up shop.

"This is actually a very old concept," owner Mike Pihlman said. "It's based on a neighborhood telework center idea with a modern twist."

The May opening was a long time in the making, said Pihlman, who retired from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he was an electrical engineer, in 2006.

For years, he kicked around the idea of a collaborative space for telecommuters as he worked from his Tracy home on occasion. He envisioned an office with all the modern conveniences of a workplace, plus a bit of social interaction.

Call it telecommuting with a latte-crowd vibe. Five people share the 1,300-square-foot 11th Street office space, including an online guru, an editor, a drywall specialist and a social networking startup. They aren't in business together but work parallel, often exchanging ideas and providing support.

"My original thinking was that I would help the commuters," Pihlman said.

That the business has attracted independents and freelance professionals is more a reflection of the perception that telecommuting often means employees aren't as accountable, Pihlman said. The practice has grown more popular, but Pihlman said he still sees some businesses as unwilling to accommodate it.

He notes that efficiency increases, as does work time, especially since the hours spent on the road are now spent working. As a former telecommuter, Pihlman has written articles about the benefits of the practice for a local newspaper.

Co-working communities are common throughout Northern California, especially in larger cities. Citizen Space in San Francisco and The Urban Hive in Sacramento both offer rental plans based on frequency of use. Pihlman said the Tracy Virtual Office is the only co-working location in San Joaquin County.

"Neither one was my idea," Pihlman said of a telework center and the co-working idea. "But I love the concept."

The local office meets many telecommuting needs, including high-speed Internet and video conference services included as part of the $150 a month membership fee, but it takes away the distractions that working at home may bring.

"The biggest thing about this location is that people work in an office and not at home," Pihlman said.

Plus, there's an emphasis on collaboration, creativity and networking.

That's one of the things member Phil Yale, a business professional specializing in efficiency issues, considers a benefit. Yale worked for an automotive company until he was laid off in August. He now freelances in his field and said there are many distractions at home, especially with two young children.

"I was looking for something like this when I was working from home," Yale said. "It's different than being at home; there are less disturbances. I get more work done."

Yale said he often throws out a concept that, within a short amount of time, will be improved or critiqued by another member. It's hard to get that at a home office.

"The community here is one of the key things. There is a certain synergy that happens here," he said. "Talking to your cat just isn't the same."

Joleen Ruffin operates the Tracy social networking site Tracy Island, at tracyislandonline.com, from both her home and a corner of Tracy Virtual Office.

When more advertisers started taking an interest in the site, she signed up for a membership at the office. Now she has a place to meet potential customers and stay on task. Ruffin has three young children. Even when she's in work mode at home, she finds herself doing other tasks.

"If I want to be productive as a working mom, I have to have a locked amount of time to do what I need to do," she said.

Ruffin, too, was a one-time commuter who would spend up to four hours a day commuting between Tracy and San Francisco. She said Tracy Virtual Office provides the resources she needs and a nice dose of banter between unlikely colleagues.